e it since I don't
believe in flaunting one's vices. He took a cigarette, tapped it on the
back of his hand, and engaged in conversation the lonely policeman, who
had strolled over to see that we were not flouting the majesty of the
law by dozing on the bench. He remarked that the night was fine but
warm, Gordon assenting. Then my friend suddenly asked him what kind of
boots he wore, and put down the address most carefully on his cuff,
thanking him effusively, after which the guardian walked off,
ponderously.

"Will you kindly explain your object?" I asked Gordon, who has what the
French call the _coquetterie du pied_ and asserts there's only one man
in New York who can make boots, a delusion that costs him about fifteen
dollars a pair.

"You're not lacking in sympathy," he instructed me, "but, on your part,
the feeling is but an unintelligent instinct. Any idiot can feel sorry
for a cripple or a man compelled by poverty to smoke cheap tobacco. I
now call your attention to the fact that this old minion is ancient and
corpulent. He's on his feet during all working hours, and his
cogitations must often turn to his nether extremities. He carefully
nurses them, while he raps those of lawless slumberers on these seats.
Civilly, I spoke to him of the subject uppermost in his mind, and now he
has left us, happy in the thought that he has put a fellowman on the
right road. That's what I call taking a sympathetic interest in a
deserving old ass. You didn't suppose for a moment that I'd wear such
beastly things, did you?"

"You would rather go barefooted," I told him.

"I would," he assented. "If Gordon McGrath appeared in the street, naked
as to his toes, the papers would mention the fact. The _Banner_ would
send me the famed Cordelia, who would insist on photographing my feet
for publication in a Sunday supplement, with a hint to the effect that I
am a rather well known painter. It would be an advertisement."

"If I went without boots, benevolent old ladies would stop me and hand
out copper pennies," I remarked, without jealousy.

"You just wait till the 'Land o' Love' is out, old man," he told me,
"and the same old dames will write for your autograph."

Gordon is quite daffy over the book I sent to my publishers last week.
He has read the first, one middle and the last chapter, and predicts
great things for it. Of course, I know better, for it will be just like
the others. From four to six thousand copies sold, a few f